Too many government officials interfering in my work – Martin Amidu

Special Prosecutor (SP), Martin Alamisi Burnes Kaiser Amidu, is alleging that several government officials were preventing him from discharging his duties as required under the law establishing his office.

In his new ‘epistle’ dated July 15, 2019 which highlights the challenges his office has been facing in the fight against corruption, the SP claimed that his office has been finding it difficult to get some heads of institutions to comply with laws designed to ensure good governance and protect the national purse.

“Heads of institutions wantonly disregard statutory requests made by the Office for information and production of documents to assist in the investigation of corruption and corruption-related offences, in spite of the fact that the President has on a number of occasions admonished them on such misconduct,” Mr. Amidu wrote.

He also lamented on the deliberate attempt of other heads of various institutions of State to interfere with his work by trying to conduct their own investigations when issues of corruption and misuse of public funds arise in their organizations.

“There have also been cases where some heads of institutions have made it their habit to interfere with and undermine the independence of this Office by deliberately running concurrent investigations falling within the jurisdiction of this Office with on-going investigations in this Office for the sole purpose of aborting investigations into corruption and corruption-related offences,” Mr. Amidu stated in the write-up.

Prior to instituting his office, Mr. Amidu’s role was expected to be one of the measures by which the Akufo-Addo led administration would fight corruption. But the several criticisms from Ghanaians after two years of not seeing “any action” from him has led the SP to be writing intermittent ‘epistles’ to update Ghanaians on why he is not able to perform his duties effectively and swiftly as they expect of him.

Meanwhile, the interferences from government officials may not be his only problem in this latest ‘epistle’.  Mr Amidu said his office has only three investigators from the Ghana Police Service with no prosecutor employed directly by the Office for obvious bureaucratic and technical reasons.

Last year, Mr. Amidu released an epistle in which he expressed his frustration over logistics constraints and publicly criticized government for making his work difficult.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor of Ghana was established after an Act of the Parliament of Ghana passed the Office of Special Prosecutor Bill in 2017.

The office serves as an independent investigating and prosecution body to make inquiries into corruption, bribery or other criminal cases at the national level whether they be in public or private sector.

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, appointed Mr. Amidu as the first SP with Ms Jane Cynthia Naa Korshie Lamptey as Deputy SP.